Immigration advocates hold a rally on Capitol Hill on Jan. 23, 2018, in Washington to support the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

Immigration advocates hold a rally on Capitol Hill on Jan. 23, 2018, in Washington to support the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

(Andrew Harnik / AP)

Robert BarnesWashington Post

A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that President Donald Trump cannot immediately end the so-called "dreamers act" that shields from deportation young immigrants who were brought to the country illegally as children.

The unanimous decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit makes it more likely that the Supreme Court will settle the question. The Trump administration already has asked the justices to move quickly to add it to the docket for this term.

The Trump administration moved to end the program in 2017 after Texas and other states threatened to sue to force an end to the program. Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions advised the Department of Homeland Security to end the program, saying it was likely unlawful, and that it could not be defended in court.

But a number of courts around the country have ruled the administration's reasoning was incorrect, and kept the program in place. Like the other courts, the panel did not question the administration's power, but faulted its approach.

"To be clear: we do not hold that DACA could not be rescinded as an exercise of executive branch discretion," wrote Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw. "We hold only that here, where the executive did not make a discretionary choice to end DACA-but rather acted based on an erroneous view of what the law required-the rescission was arbitrary and capricious under settled law."

The panel of judges, all nominated by Democratic presidents, flatly rejected the administration's position that courts lacked the power to review the executive branch's immigration actions.

"The government may not simultaneously both assert that its actions are legally compelled, based on its interpretation of the law, and avoid review of that assertion by the judicial branch, whose 'province and duty' it is 'to say what the law is,'" Wardlaw wrote, borrowing the language of the landmark Marbury v. Madison decision.

Wardlaw wrote that the Obama administration was within its powers to enact DACA because it had to make a choice about how to direct limited resources in deporting illegal immigrants, and decided to spare those who came as children, had not committed crimes and were students or in the military.

"The reality is (and always has been) that the executive agencies charged with immigration enforcement do not have the resources required to deport every single person present in this country without authorization," she wrote.

And while the opinion does not purport to decide the wisdom on the policy, Wardlaw was clearly sympathetic.

"It is no hyperbole to say that Dulce Garcia embodies the American dream," is how she begins the opinion, telling the story of a 4-year-old brought to this country by her parents who now has a thriving law practice in San Diego.

"Recognizing the cruelty and wastefulness of deporting productive young people to countries with which they have no ties, the Secretary of Homeland Security announced a policy in 2012 that would provide some relief to individuals like Garcia, while allowing our communities to continue to benefit from their contributions," Wardlaw wrote.

The panel's decision keeps in place an injuction from the lower court that allows DACA recipients to renew their applications. According to California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, more than 187,000 people "have regained or extended their DACA protections as a result of the court's injunction, and hundreds of thousands of additional Dreamers are eligible to do so."

The case is University of California Board of Regents v. Department of Homeland Security.